Privately Provided Public Goods: Theoretical, Econometric and Experimental Studies of Cooperation

本研究项目使用理论、实验和标准计量经济学分析来检验利他、慈善和合作行为。该提案由三部分组成。第一部分包括对慈善事业等公共物品私人捐赠的四项理论研究。前两项研究探讨了筹款机构，以了解它们如何增加慈善捐款。另外两项研究探讨了利他主义的本质和给予的“温暖的光芒”。第二部分对慈善捐赠进行了四项计量经济学研究。其中包括对已婚夫妇赠送礼物的分析，从而探索家庭公共产品的提供模式和家庭内部任务的专业化。这些将增加关于家庭决策和慈善捐赠的文献。还有一项研究是关于政府对慈善机构的资助如何影响慈善机构的筹款支出以及捐款。第三部分概述了三个主要主题的九个实验项目。第一个主题是利他偏好的本质。几个对照实验通过让受试者揭示他们在不同情况下的偏好，揭示了产生利他主义和公平的因素。第二个实验主题着眼于我们用来确定公平的基本博弈论模型。例如，如果公平不是被试关注的问题，那么子游戏的完美性是否就是思考最后通牒游戏的有效方式？这些实验试图阐明这个问题。第三个实验主题是制度选择如何与公平偏好相互作用。在缺乏公平和其他社会关注的情况下，制度是否存在（现实的）特征，这些特征可能是良性的，但根据这些社会偏好，它们又能提高效率？这个问题从许多不同的角度进行了探讨。总的来说，这里提出的项目的目的是为了更好地理解人们为什么以及如何以公平和利他的方式行事，并理解世界是如何被塑造成利用这些道德偏好来提高效率的。

This research project examines altruistic, charitable and cooperative behavior using theoretical, experimental and standard econometric analysis. The proposal has three parts. Part I consists of four theoretical studies on private giving to public goods, such as charities. The first two studies explore institutions of fundraising to understand how they may increase charitable contributions. Two other studies explore the nature of altruism and "warm glows" to giving. Part II provides four econometric studies of charitable giving. These include analysis of gifts by married couples, hence exploring models of the provision of household public goods and the specialization of tasks within the household. These will add to the growing literature on household decisions as well as to that on charitable giving. There is also a study of how government grants to charities affect fundraising expenditures of charities as well as donations. Part III sketches nine experimental projects on three main topics. The first topic is the nature of altruistic preferences. Several controlled experiments uncover what factors produce altruism and fairness by letting subjects reveal their preferences in a number of different circumstances. The second experimental topic looks at the fundamental game theory models that we use to identify fairness. For instance, is subgame perfection a valid way of thinking about ultimatum games if fairness were not a concern of subjects? These experiments try to shed light on this question. The third experimental topic is how institutional choice interacts with preferences for fairness. Are there (realistic) features of institutions that may be benign in the absence of fairness and other social concerns, but which promote efficiency in light of these social preferences? This question is explored from a number of different perspectives. As a whole, the purpose of the projects proposed here is to gain a greater understanding of why and how people behave in fair and altruistic ways, and to understand how the world has been shaped to take advantage of these moral preferences in order to promote efficiency.